


the wordless waltz

by takingoffmyshoes



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, pointless h/c with a side of existential crisis, the usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 04:58:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6270454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takingoffmyshoes/pseuds/takingoffmyshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Actions may speak louder than words, but louder has never meant clearer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the wordless waltz

The front door opens as she’s folding the last of the towels on their bed. An unexpected day off has filled her with the spirit of productivity, but it’s barely after noon.

“El?” Peter calls over the sound of it closing again, followed by a low murmur of voices.

“Up here,” she calls back, but heads downstairs anyway. “You’re home early. Is everything—” The living room comes into view just in time for her to catch Peter easing Neal into lying down on the couch and tucking his feet up with the rest of him. Neal’s suit jacket is slung over the back, and his tie is already undone. Neal himself is as limp and motionless as his discarded wardrobe. She blinks, pausing on the second to last step, struck by memory, and lets out a startled, _oh_. “Honey, is he okay?” 

Peter pulls the blanket over him and straightens up with a sigh. “Yeah, just tired. It’s been a long week.”

Elizabeth comes into the living room and sidles up behind him to slip her arms around his waist. “You’ve had the same week he has,” she points out. “Do we need to get another couch, or should I just put you in bed?”

He smiles, but his eyes are still on Neal, curled up and fast asleep. “No, I’m fine. We had to ride him pretty hard on this case, and he won’t admit it but I think he’s coming down with something. He fell asleep at his desk instead of eating lunch, so I made an executive decision to end the week a few hours early.” He turns around suddenly, searching her face with worried eyes. “You don’t mind, do you? I can take him back to his place, but I thought…” he trails off, because he probably hadn’t thought anything as much as he’d felt it.

She can imagine it easily: Peter, in his office, eating lunch at his desk (as he often does when trying to finish up early on a Friday), glancing across the bullpen and catching sight of Neal, slumped back in his chair— no, Neal with his head on his desk, past the point of pretense. She can see the flickering of emotions across his face, starting with irritation and ending with concern when Neal wakes up, disoriented, with Peter’s hand on his shoulder. Peter would have helped him pack up his things and then pulled him up, given him a shoulder to lean on as they made their way first to the elevator and then to the car. They probably wouldn’t have talked much, Peter being Peter and Neal being Neal, but the wordless waltz of offering and accepting and reciprocating is a peculiar part of the Peter Burke experience. He might not always be the most articulate person in the room, but his actions are deeply expressive, and it’s obvious to anyone with eyes how much he cares about Neal.

She’s sure it was almost entirely accidental, but whether he likes it or not, Peter has gone from doing his damnedest to put Neal in prison to unthinkingly bringing him home when he isn’t feeling well. Then again, she can’t be sure he wouldn’t have brought Neal home then, too, if he’d thought he could get away with it. That’s part of the Neal Caffrey experience, after all. It’s easy to forget that it’s his job to make people want to trust him. To care about him.

Peter’s still waiting for confirmation, though, so she pulls him down for a quick kiss. “You thought right,” she tells him. “We’ll feed him when he wakes up and go from there.”

Peter has no business looking that relieved — as though she would have said no — but she can’t deny she loves the way he smiles when he does.

***

Neal sleeps through any reasonable lunch time and starts encroaching on reasonable dinner times. It’s half past five when he finally stirs, stretching in the tight, contained way that doesn’t look like it actually stretches anything and rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand. Elizabeth is tucked into one of the living room chairs with a glass of wine in one hand and a magazine spread open across her lap, unabashedly watching him. He opens his eyes directly into her gaze and freezes. “Elizabeth,” he says carefully. Then he takes in the details — the wine, the fading light, the clock — and the deer-in-the-headlights look collapses into exhausted resignation. “God, Elizabeth, I’m so sorry.” He rubs at his eyes again before slowly pushing himself up. “I didn’t mean to crash your afternoon like this, I just... Peter said I could…” He’s definitely coming down with something, if this the best he can do at saving face. “You should have woken me up.”

“If we’d wanted you gone, we would have. But you needed the sleep, and you’re always welcome here, Neal. Always.” She waits until he nods; she knows better than to wait until he understands. “Now, do you think you could manage some dinner?”

He drinks two glasses of water but shows no interest in wine and barely touches his pasta, plain as it is in nothing more than a light pesto. Satchmo picks up on this immediately and stakes him out as the most likely font of generosity, but Neal doesn’t react to his advances.

“You’re really not feeling well, are you?” Peter asks, not bothering to hide his sharpening concern.

Neal waves him off. “No, I’m fine. It’s good,” he adds quickly, gesturing loosely at his plate, fork in hand but almost entirely unused. “It’s good, I’m just… It’s good.”

“Is there something you’d prefer?” Elizabeth presses. It could simply be that he’s more thirsty than hungry, but she doesn’t like this pale, listless Neal any more than Peter does, and low blood sugar is nobody’s friend. “Soup? Fruit? Juice?”

“Apple juice?” Neal suggests, then looks down quickly, flushing. It’s a little sad, really, how hard it is for him to _ask_ for some things. 

“Sure, sweetie. There’s a new bottle in the fridge, Peter, if you don’t mind getting it.”

Peter gets him a fresh glass, slightly smaller but filled almost to the rim with the clear amber juice. Neal gifts him with a beatific smile pulled from some deep reserve, and Peter’s answering smile is soft and fond. He would have walked, she thinks. If they didn’t have apple juice and Neal had asked for it in that hopeful, unsure voice, Peter would have walked to the nearest corner store without a thought.

***

Neal makes vague noises about going back to June’s after that, but his heart isn’t really in it. He lets Peter talk him into taking the guest bed for the night, and that’s how he ends up spending the weekend with them. It’s gray and drizzly — perfect weather for staying indoors, or in Neal’s case, staying in bed. Saturday morning, when Peter offers to drive him home, he just rolls over and goes back to sleep. He’s not really sick, at least not in any easily categorized way. His voice is hoarse but he never develops a cough, and he isn’t very excited by the idea of food but he never gets sick to his stomach. He’s just a little feverish, a little achy, and very, very tired.

She and Peter take turns checking on him, bringing him water or tea and little fruit cups or bowls of soup as they go about their days. Sunday morning, when Neal’s fever is a bit higher than it has been, she finds Peter sitting up against the headboard, Neal lying next to him with a folded washcloth resting on his forehead. Peter’s wearing a wry smile as Neal laughs softly up at the ceiling. Peter shrugs, rueful, and goes on with whatever embarrassing story he’s telling. She leaves them to it. She can get it out of them later, if she wants to.

Monday dawns just as cold and miserable as the weekend had been, and Peter calls Neal in sick before Neal’s even awake. “You didn’t have to do that,” Neal says, looking suddenly guilty, when Peter tells him. He’d finally made it out of bed half an hour ago and is sitting at the table with El, sipping at a mug of tea while she has her coffee. He puts the mug down and pulls his hands away from it like it’s somehow more incriminating than his bed head or red-rimmed eyes. “I can go in, it’s not a problem.”

“Have you been faking all weekend?” Peter asks flatly. 

Neal blinks. “No, Peter, why— Do you honestly think that I would—”

“Then you’re getting a day off.”

“But—”

Elizabeth lays a hand on his. “Neal, honey, it’s okay. You’re not all the way back to normal yet, and it’s better to take one day off now than to need more later when you realize you’re still sick.”

Peter puts his hands on hips and looks far too pleased. “What she said.”

“I find it hilarious that you think I have a ‘normal,’” Neal mutters, picking up his tea again, but doesn’t argue further. Given that Peter is getting ready to leave and Neal’s still in a borrowed bathrobe over borrowed pajamas, he couldn’t really present a convincing case, anyway.

Elizabeth has to go to work, too, but not quite so early today. She hangs around until ten, keeping an eye on Neal — for health reasons, not criminal reasons, and it’s interesting that Peter hadn’t even mentioned the inherent concerns of leaving Neal alone in their house all day. He’s still not himself, though; despite his earlier quip, he does have some kind of baseline, and slow, quiet Neal, with his careful movements and contemplative gaze, is not the Neal who can’t be trusted around personal belongings.

Still, basic safety habits die hard and she calls Peter from her office once she arrives. He picks up almost immediately, sounding worried. 

“Everything’s fine,” she assures him. “Just, you _are_ aware that we’re tacitly permitting a convicted felon unfettered access to our home right now, right?”

There’s a long pause, then the sound of a door closing. When he answers, his voice is quiet. “El, you saw him this weekend. Hell, you saw him this morning. I honestly don’t think he has the energy to get up to anything, which is at least part of the reason he’s not at work with me. Besides, he thinks he owes us now. He won’t do anything that’ll put him even more behind until he thinks he can pay it back.”

She takes a few seconds to turn that over in her mind. “Two things,” she says at last. “Maybe three. First, do you really believe that he won’t get into trouble just because he’s not feeling well? I mean, I’m not saying I expect him to rob us blind, but he doesn’t seem _that_ sick, and I know for a fact you’re incredibly skeptical when it comes to anything that could be an act.”

Across the line, Peter sighs. “At the risk of sounding weirdly possessive, I do know Neal a bit better than you do, and his behavior this weekend wasn't an act. It was the complete lack of an act, and that’s a very rare thing.”

“I’m guessing it’s not a good thing, either.”

“Depends on how you look at it. From his perspective, it’s a probably a disaster. From mine, it’s a step in the right direction.” Voices swell and fade in the background, and then there’s the unmistakable sound of a formidable pile of paper landing on a desk. “There was something else?”

“Yeah.” This had been bothering her all weekend, in a low, simmering kind of way. “Neal thinking that he ‘owes us.’ Does he understand that he…. Well. Does he understand?”

Another long sigh. “That he doesn’t actually have to manipulate everyone around him just to avoid being screwed over? Not yet. We’re working on it, but it’s a process.”

Ah. “And this is part of the process.” A clear demonstration of unintentional outcome: Neal being accorded a measure of trust for his lack of deception, being shown that he doesn’t have to perform in order to secure a place to stay and people to look after him.

“I love having a smart wife,” Peter tells her, and she can hear the smile. “Listen, I gotta go, but none of this means you shouldn’t call if you think there’s a problem. Like I said, we’re still working on it.” 

“Sure thing,” she says easily. “Just wanted to be sure that we were on the same page. And now that I know we are, I should probably let you get back to saving the world.”

“Well, you know how it is. My partner leaves me in the lurch, and corporate tax fraud schemes aren’t going to bust themselves.”

She laughs. “I guess not. Love you.”

“Love you too, hon.”

As she hangs up, she gets the weirdest sense, somewhere between intuition and premonition. This must be what it’s like to be Peter — to be absolutely sure, beyond reason or doubt, that right now, somewhere, Neal Caffrey is running.

***

The house is empty when she gets home. A quick survey shows that his breakfast dishes have been washed, dried, and put away; the living area has been put back to Martha-Stewart-worthy rights; the clothes he’d shown up in are gone; the pajamas he’d been wearing are likewise nowhere to be seen, but on the guest bed is a note with a promise to wash and return them along with the towel he’d used. Nothing else appears to be touched — even the shower is dry, the head and handle shiny enough to have been wiped down for prints — and all at once everything feels oddly surreal. The last few days slip into a vague category of remembered but not proven, and were it not for the note confirming that yes, Neal had spent two days lying in their guest bed, wearing Peter’s pajamas and waiting out a sickness no one could name, she would be doubting her own recollections.

Just then, her phone buzzes in her jacket pocket. _Peter said to text you,_ says the screen. _Made it back to June’s. Thanks for everything._

 _Our pleasure,_ she types out, then pauses, and deletes it. _You’re welcome_ , she texts back. _Take care of yourself._

She doesn’t get a response to that. 

Instead, she gets a welling sense of emptiness, of loneliness. In her freshly tidied guest room with its neatly made bed and half-closed window blinds, the silent phone is a gentle rebuke, a quiet reminder of acts not meant to be exposed and roles not meant to intersect.

_The sixth age shifts into the lean and slippered pantaloon…_

In many ways, Neal is living on borrowed time. He hides old eyes behind bright, youthful smiles and tries to build himself from the outside in. It can’t work. It doesn’t work. It isn’t working. Even now he’s cracking, and before long he’s going to have to accept that he’s lost. 

And so he runs. Runs from kindness without cost, from a home without secrets, from the people who would show him what it is to be real. And when the time comes for him to face the knowledge that he can’t survive as names and lists, counting his wealth in favors and thefts, one of two things will happen. He will either push everyone away, isolating himself with such force and abandon that he will break apart in the vacuum he’s created, or he will accept the momentous burden of living — tying all of himself to a single name and moving forward — and be crushed by the weight of his subsumed identities.

She thinks of tired eyes, and of how many sleepless nights it takes to grind someone that far into the dirt. She thinks of rumpled sheets and tousled hair and a fear of being loved. She thinks of herself, standing in her home, holding her dark cellphone in an empty room, trying to name the raw emotion tugging at her chest.

It feels like grief.

It feels like grief, and she wonders, not for the first time, who she’s supposed to be grieving for.

**Author's Note:**

> (tfw you set out to write light-hearted, self-indulgent schmoop and end up quoting Shakespeare and ruminating on the nature of social identity/crises of self)
> 
> Thank you for reading, and please feel free to leave any feedback you'd like to!


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